42 pages • 1 hour read
Doris LessingThe Grass is Singing
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1950A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 10-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
Chapter 10 begins by explaining how Mary and Dick Turner became the gossip of “the district,” the white community they are part of but never take part in. Mr. and Mrs. Slatter incite most of the gossip as people wonder what the Turners do all day. Others wonder how they make a living as Dick has constant bad luck. Though the Slatters also tell everyone about Mary’s attempt at running away, when people begin rumors that Charlie Slatter whipped Dick Turner for his treatment of Mary, Charlie informs everyone that the fault in the relationship is all Mary’s. This is how most everyone came to despise Mary Turner. Eventually, Charlie pays Dick a visit as he has not seen the Turners in some time. As he drives to the house, he sees how ramshackle the land is and makes up his mind to urge Dick to sell him the property for grazing. He finds Dick looking extremely unhealthy, and though he tries to get Dick to sell the land, Dick refuses out of wounded pride, all the while ranting about how ill Mary is.
When the two approach the house, Mary appears, and Charlie notes how thin she is. She greets him flirtatiously, with gaudy clothing on, confusing Charlie. To his horror, her clothing is like that of the natives, and once he enters the house, he sees much of the material from the kaffir store in the house itself. Mary continues to act in a grotesque, flirtatious manner, disgusting Charlie. When Dick asks if her will stay for dinner, he refuses, but then decides to stay to see how things play out. To his horror, he sees that Mary uses the same flirtatious manner with Moses. Dick seems embarrassed and refuses to do anything about Mary’s behavior. Charlie himself must make Moses leave, and is incredulous at the upended power dynamics in the house. He takes Dick outside and tells him that he must leave on holiday and take Mary away for her own good. The two argue for four hours, after which Dick reluctantly agrees to sell the farm and go away on holiday.
Charlie then goes off to find a manager for the farm and is introduced to Tony Marston, the young man from Chapter 1 whom he dislikes because of the young man’s newness. He tells no one of what is happening on the farm, handling everything urgently. Marston is brought to meet Dick Turner and, though the farm is a mess and the Turners strange, he begins to like Dick, though he finds Mary odd, even wondering if she is mad.
Marston has progressive views about natives, with books about the color question in his personal collection. Yet his notions of sexual relationships as they extend to whites and the natives come to the foreground when he spies Moses undressing Mary Turner one afternoon. Marston is shocked at seeing this break in social conduct. It is entirely strange, even for a man with progressive ideas. Moses sees him after leaving Mary’s room, but looks on him with disdain and exits the house, while Mary looks at first guilty, then abused. Marston realizes that she is shouting at Moses, who is in the doorway, and Marston tries to get Moses to leave. Moses ignores him, but when he asks Mary if he should leave, she sides with Marston and yells at him to leave. Moses leaves in a fit of anger and is not seen or heard from again for some time. Marston realizes that Mary is in fact not well, and the narrative points to the fact that she has been struggling to reassert her dominance. Later, Mary informs Dick that Moses has left, and he takes the news in stride. Though Marston wonders if he should inform Dick about the events that happened between Moses and Mary earlier, he decides that, as the Turners will be leaving in two days, he will keep quiet and let things play out as they should.
Chapter 11 Summary
Mary awakes the next morning and almost seems her old self. She feels at ease and at peace with the land and the morning. Though her peace is momentarily interrupted by Dick, she rejects his entreaties and he goes back to sleep. Mary feels terror for a brief moment, and it is stated that this terror is a terror that will later “engulf her.” She is also mentioned as “clairvoyant,” another telling indication of future events. Mary then goes outside onto the veranda and revels in the colors of the sky. Her happiness, however, is soon thwarted by the sun and the cicadas, which she detests. While on the veranda she looks over to a corner and mentions that “it will be there (222),” again foreshadowing her death, what the reader already knows from Chapter 1 occurs on the veranda.
Mary realizes that she will have the entire day to herself before her death, and goes about her day with this seeming knowledge. She comments on the bush, and realizes that when they are gone the bush will take back the land and return the patch of land to its own. At one point, after Marston and Dick head out for the lands, she is so stifled by the heat that she runs outside into the bush, into the trees. Though she is fearful of Moses, who has not returned since she yelled at him to leave, she takes delight in being outside the hot house, and sees cicadas up close for the first time. Returning, she sees a native and thinks it is Moses, but realizes it is just a young man Dick has sent requesting refreshments.
Mary eventually sends the native away with the tea and continues rambling about the farm, awaiting her death. She goes to Marston’s room and embraces the coolness of the place, then takes delight in seeing his shoes and all the books he has. She remembers the store. She considers visiting the store, which she has hated for so long, before she dies. Upon entering, she is startled to see Moses in the store. She screams and runs out, back to Marston’s hut, and is surprised to see Marston there. The entire day she has been telling herself that Marston will save her from Moses, but upon seeing the young man, she realizes that he, like young Dick Turner so long ago, will not be able to save her. She gathers what pride she has left and returns to the house, awaiting her death at Moses’s hands.
Dick tries to get Mary to eat and prepare herself for the trip they will take the next day. She wants Marston and Dick to leave her alone so that she might die, eventually goes to bed when Dick suggests it. As she locks the back door, she sees Moses standing there, but he disappears when Dick goes to see if someone is outside. When Dick doses off, Mary realizes that she must go to the veranda to die. She goes outside and imagines the bush creeping closer to kill her. As she watches, she sees Moses moving toward her with a weapon in hand. She thinks briefly to cry out and explain to him, but realizes it is too late. Moses kills her on the veranda, finally feeling vindicated. He visits Marston but does not harm him. Moses thinks to flee, but realizes he has accomplished what he wanted to, and so he waits silently by a tree to be discovered for the crime.
Chapter 10-11 Analysis
Chapter 10 links back to the first chapter, revealing how “the district” came to think of Mary and Dick Turner as strange, proud outsiders. It is revealed that the Slatters engage in gossip, informing others of the Turners and their shortcomings, including Mary’s attempt at running away. Mrs. Slatter dislikes Mary’s pride, while Charlie simply wants Dick’s land to graze his cattle upon. He is angry that Dick still sticks to the farm when he does not even know how to make a profit. What also drives Charlie to investigate is the district’s fear of poor whites. White South Africans take an instant dislike to other whites who bring the race down. Charlie’s anger is turned to horror when he not only sees that the Turners have fallen down the social ladder into white poverty, but that the social order between whites and natives has been overturned by Mary allowing Moses to be “cheeky.” Charlie’s early attempts at wanting to grab Dick Turner’s land away from him turn to pleas of fear and self-preservation as he tries to get Dick to see that he and Mary need to go away for their own sakes. This attempt is ultimately self-preservation, as their deeds reflect poorly on the community.
Both Mary and Dick Turner appear to be suffering from madness by this point. The years of poverty and their luckless marriage have taken a toll. Mary has gone from a woman who abused natives to one who is involved in a complicated relationship with Moses. Marston, whom Charlie has hired to help on the farm, sees this complex relationship one afternoon when he spies Moses undressing Mary. Moses will not even leave when Marston demands him to, just as he treated Charlie with contempt earlier. It is only at Mary’s insistence that Moses leaves. When he does, the reader can see that something has changed in Moses. He is hurt and angry that Mary has seemingly teamed up with Marston against him. He leaves. While Mary rants about driving Moses away, Marston is left to decide if she is indeed crazy. Her relationship with Moses has the demeanor of the sexual encounters he has heard so much about between white women and their natives, and though he is progressive, is sickened by Moses’s boldness.
These chapters also reveal how Mary has long thought of the bush as an alien land. She has lived in fear of the bush, wanting to get as far away from it as possible. When Moses kills her in the end, she equates Moses with the bush, especially as he has emerged from the bush to kill her, to “reclaim her”. Moses’s actions can be viewed, as the narrative suggests, as wounded pride. He may have been hurt by what Mary herself called her “disloyalty” to him. Whether their relationship was indeed sexual or not, there is the hint of sexual attraction between the two, and the power dynamic between master and servant had effectively been broken down.
Another interesting aspect of the last chapters is that Mary seems to sense her own death. She realizes that she will die and that Moses will reappear to kill her, and she accepts this end to her life. Her acceptance paints her in a different light, as she has previously been fighting against whatever and whomever was not in her control. This acceptance of death is a major turning point for Mary. In the end, the only thing that allows her to get away from the farm is death.
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By Doris Lessing
